Moderate Malaysia: Man seeks court’s help to renounce Islam

He wants to leave Islam in order to marry his Hindu girlfriend. That’s his business, and only his business — or at least it should be that way. Because of the strictures of Islamic law, however, he is entangled in legal difficulty, because Islamic law forbids Muslims to leave Islam, and even in “moderate” Indonesia, that makes conversion to another faith nigh impossible, or wrapped in miles of red tape.

“Man seeks court’s help to renounce Islam to marry Hindu girlfriend,” by V. Anbalagan, The Malaysian Insider, February 18, 2016 (thanks to David):

A food caterer is seeking help from the Federal Court to compel the National Registration Department to remove Islam as his religion and his Muslim name from his identity card, so that he can get married to a non-Muslim.

Mohd Shariff Abdullah (Mahendran), 35, has filed three legal questions to obtain leave from the apex court to have merit of the case heard.

Lawyer Robin Lim, however, said the legal questions cannot be revealed until the court makes a ruling whether to allow Shariff’s leave application.

Shariff’s case is similar to that of Lina Joy’s which went before the Federal Court in 2007.

Lina, a Malay-Muslim, wanted to embrace Christianity to marry her boyfriend, but NRD insisted she produce a conversion (out) certificate from the Shariah court, which she did not possess.

Her lawyers had argued that the department need only consider the baptism certificate from the church to facilitate the change in name and religion.

In a majority verdict, the Federal Court rejected her appeal and ruled that “a person who wanted to renounce his/her religion must do so according to existing laws or practices of the particular religion”.

Lawyer S. Nithiyawathi, who appeared with Lim, said Shariff was still a bachelor and could not marry a Hindu woman until his religious status was resolved.

On October 30 last year, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal, as well as that of his step-brothers, Mohd Jefrey Mohd Baser, 32, Mohd Jass, 28, Mohd Naser, 22 and their mother, Jamilah Jan Vasanthegokelam, 56.

A three-man bench, chaired by Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh, ruled that evidence on record revealed that NRD’s decision to retain the religon and Muslim names was correct in law.

“It cannot be categorised as unreasonable, perverse and illegal for us to interfere,” Zawawi said of the unanimous ruling.

Lim said with the exception of Shariff, all others have decided against appealing the Court of Appeal ruling.

In 2013, the mother and the siblings filed a judicial review in the High Court and named NRD and the Home Ministry as respondents.

Jamilah wanted to be identified only as Vasanthegokelam, Shariff as Mahendran, Jefrey as Saiprasad Pillai, Jass as Jagath Kishore Pillai and Naser as Yuthesh Pillai.

Facts revealed that Shariff was born to father, S. Ghanasan, and Vasanthegokelam who were Hindus.

The mother in 1982 remarried a Muslim, Mohd Baser a/l Kalakan, and they have three children, Mohd Jefrey, Mohd Jass and Mohd Naser.

The appellate court was told that the mother went to NRD in 1983 to change her name from Vasanthegokelam to Jamilah Jan.

She returned to the department in 1985 to replace her identity card, using the same name.

In early 2013, she came to the department to remove her name and the word “Islam” in the identity card, but was refused unless she produced a conversion certificate from the religious authorities.

The court was also told there was evidence that Jamilah and the children converted to Islam and practised the faith after she had married Baser.

Lim, however, said there were no records of their conversion to Islam.

He said Jamilah did not produce any conversion certificate to the department in order to be classified as Muslim in her identity card.

Lim said Shariff was converted to Islam and given a Muslim name when an application for his identity card was made.

ECAW – you have given excellent rebuttal, and got the typical reaction. Supporters of Islam simply cannot deal with criticism of Islam. They will usually deflect the conversation to talk about either Christians or Jews. You will NEVER get a direct response from them – because, of course they have no answer.

Simple- it is the most powerful brainwashing system ever devised and once ‘in’ you CANNOT get ‘out’, on pain of death- apostasy. Since the process begins at birth, children are given no choice and must pretend to believe even if they don’t.

As an atheist I find it repugnant that any religion holds this much power in society. That Santa Claus/burning bush/throat-cutting nonsense needs to stay in its proper place, with the fairy tales and fiction of life. People and cultures that embrace religious delusion to this extent are rarely better than their religion allows, and man, isn’t islam good proof of that!

If we let “nice” muslims into our neighborhoods and nation(s) they will import their violent and ignorant ideology too. And that ideology will continue to inspire muslims to kill and destroy us for islam. We have enough problems in America and Europe without throwing Islam’s madness into the mix. I say it’s time to hunker down, secure our boarders, and create a new patriotic zeitgeist here in America for freedom and democracy. No more trying to appease barbaric Islam with soft bigotry and denials. If western leaders are willing to grant equity to islam’s murder and hate then it’s fair we infidels be granted parity for human rights and good morals.

Atheist Jerry, Just to expand a bit on you post. In Islam, human rights and good morals are not really involved. It is only obedience to Allah and Muhammad that matters. Fortunately, both Jews and Christians have rejected the violence of the Old Testament, but Islam, with its dual nature, can mask as peaceful, while carrying out Jihad – either peaceful or violent.
In the United States today, if you see a collection of people you usually cannot tell their religious background. They could be Jews, Christians, Atheists, Cultists (Scientologists, Mormons) or whatever – with the exception of Muslims. You can tell Muslims by their appearance and they effectively force their culture on the rest of us. Whereas Jews tent to be religious on Saturday, Christians tend to be religious on Sunday; Muslims tend to be religious every day – thus creating a significant disruption on our society.
With Jews and Christians, Atheists can force a separation of Church and State. With Islam, we cannot. Criticism of Islam is severely punished – resulting in an end to free speech, an end to freedom of inquiry, and the end of scientific progress.

The Old Testament and punishment was directed solely to the Jews and no one else. Jews could also perform sacrifices for forgiveness and to minimize punishment. The whole point was God wanted to point out they were sinners and the hope that they might accept Jesus when He came. Jews rejected Jesus because they wanted their Messiah to free them of Roman oppression and this was not the purpose of Christ. Christ was eternity minded. Jews also did not like the popularity and clarity He brought to Judaism and teachings so they plotted his death. The punishments given by God for the Jews indicates how righteous and holy He is and gives Christians all the more reason to be appreciative of His death for OUR sins. The “wages of sin is death”. I gave the Christian perspective on this..

“Fortunately, both Jews and Christians have rejected the violence of the Old Testament, ”

The Old Testament is really a history of the Jews and a direct interaction with God, through prophets and a few Kings. It is the Old Testament that you most clearly see God’s nature and character. He is not different in the New Testament. He is the same in the Old and the New Testament.
The New Testament clarifies teachings but God has not changed. In the Old Testament, “violence” was used.. People will always be at war. People will always find a way to murder each other. God often used the enemies of the Jews to punish them. SO the idea that violence was “rejected” isn’t really accurate.
The nature of human beings is NOT to be restrained. We have to work at self control. So “violence” is part of being human. It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that restrains Christians and influences unbelievers to be nonviolent but because the Old Testament has “violence” in it, Christians are not “rejecting violence”.

Thats because all Malays were Muslims cravenmirage (sic). After the Malacca Sultanate all Malays became Muslims and everyone after that was either Muslim or born to apostate parents.
………………………….

Mazo wants to pretend that Malays being Muslim is simply an observation–but it is not. The fact is that all ethnic Malays in Malaysia are by law Muslim as defined by Article 160 of the Constitution.

One need only look at the suffering of Lina Joy–a Christian Malaysian who has tried for years to have her conversion to Christianity recognized. She has been unable to marry her Christian fiancé because it is illegal in Malaysia–as it is anywhere under Shari’ah–for an Infidel man to marry a Muslim woman.

An apostate has by law to go through the Shari’ah courts–which are not only unlikely to grant one’s leaving Islam, but five states in Malaysia have laws that outright forbid apostasy.

“Malaysia: Those who leave Islam face fines, whippings and death sentence”

Thats called apostasy, moron. The Malay’s traditional religion is by now Islam because the Malacca Sultanate led all Malays into becoming Muslims centuries ago, their established religion is Islam and all Malays are born to Muslim or apostate parents. Its something caled an ethno-religious group, cravenmirage.

All Italians are presumed Catholic unless stated otherwise. All Serbs are presumed Orthodox unless otherwise. If you don’t know the definition of ethno-religious group then shut up.

There are ethnicities like Albanians which have several traditional religions and they are pluri-religious ethnicities. Malays aren’t one of them.

This man in Malaysia – who was born to practising HIndu parents, his mother only converting to Islam after she married his Muslim stepfather – who wishes to return to and practise the HIndu faith of his father has to face the fact that in Malaysia, as things presently are, he will not be allowed to.

And his half-brothers, whose mother has decided to return to the HIndu faith she practised before marrying their Muslim father, should be free to choose which faith they follow, too. Why should they be compelled to be Muslim forever and ever, with no hope of leaving it, merely because their father followed that religion??? One is not born with a particular set of religious practices pre-coded into the DNA!

He and his mother and brothers, all of them wishing to practice Hinduism and be known as Hindus rather than Muslims, should have written off Malaysia as a dead loss and voted with their feet… migrating to majority-Hindu India. There they could have shucked off Islam like a dirty old rag and vanished into the 800 000 strong mass of Indian HIndus.

I support him. Muslims cannot stand to have Christianity known a religion of love vs a religion based on hatred. Muslims teach three year old’s how to hate and murder Jews on national TV….do you want them near you? Confusing makes the koran look liberal as needed but down deep it is a religion of pure hatred of everything free people despise. It is run by ignorant Imam’s for ignorant followers who are terrified the people will learn of Christianity and love.

This 1 hr documentary will cure any guilt trips someone may have about the crusades. https://youtu.be/t_Qpy0mXg8Y The next ½ hr documentary show what is likely behind the religious power struggles for the past 1000yrs plus. The last 10 min is good entertainment.https://youtu.be/xasfYpvVMM0
The last 10 min is good entertainment. https://youtu.be/Jl5CuCmePBw
These videos need to be shared as widely and rapidly as possible

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